Just another television show

Gene Lyons

Posted on Wednesday, December 1, 2004



Reluctant to become a partisan in the "culture wars" being fought on 

the nation’s talk shows and editorial pages? There really are only two 

ways: Either get rid of the TV altogether or, equally unlikely in a nation of 

self-dramatizing soreheads, tighten up that pouting lower lip and enjoy 

the comedy. See, it’s all just another TV show, as stylized in its way 

as professional wrestling, a melodrama enacted by opportunists of every 

variety. And I’m not simply talking about ABC programmers who slipped 

an R-rated promo for the prime-time soap opera "Desperate Housewives" in 

among the gyrating cheerleaders and babe-o-rama beer commercials on NFL 

Monday night football. 



I mean the whole self-promoting cast: repentant network execs, 

moralizing FCC regulators, solemn anchor-persons, fulminating TV 

preachers and smartaleck newspaper columnists, too. 



How could ABC be so foolish after CBS’ bad experience with Janet 

Jackson’s infamous "wardrobe malfunction" during last year’s Super 

Bowl? Well, duh. The "controversy" couldn’t have been more deliberately 

contrived. How would a nation traumatized by a peek at a washed-up pop 

star’s naughty bits react to a naked blonde jumping into a handsome, 

black NFL star’s arms? 



Why, exactly as producers hoped. The idea was to let the crucial Bud 

Light demographic know that "Desperate Housewives" wasn’t merely a 

weep-a-thon for women; it’s tasteless enough for both sexes. Already 

the nation’s top-ranked program, "Desperate Housewives" promptly drew 

several million titillated new viewers. 



Now me, I’m so old that I can remember when the most strident protests 

would have come from feminists denouncing the skit as a degrading 

sexist fantasy. Persons of their gender simply don’t act as shamelessly as the 

saucy minx played by actress Nicolette Sheridan. Alas, I’ve also been 

on the road with professional athletes, and it saddens me to report that 

some women do. 



In the real NFL, stadium security would have to answer for letting a 

groupie into the locker room. Or maybe the bimbo was supposed to be a 

team owner’s trophy wife. As in porn films, characterization was 

vestigial. Blonde, towel, locker room, wide receiver—in short, a 

degrading sexist fantasy with racial overtones. 



But this is 2004, so the task of helping promote ABC’s stunt fell 

mainly to televangelists and public scolds on the Republican right. Former NFL 

color man Rush Limbaugh pronounced himself shocked. "I mean, there are 

some guys with their kids that sit down to watch ‘ Monday Night 

Football, ’" the thrice-divorced, pill-popping moralist announced. 



On "Meet the Press," Rev. Jerry Falwell’s wattles shook with 

indignation over the offense to family values. 



I’d be more impressed with the indignation of Limbaugh, Falwell and 

pundits of their ilk but for their gleeful participation in the Clinton 

Impeachment Follies when, thanks to them and the psalm-singing judicial 

pornographer Kenneth Starr, the phrase "oral sex" was repeated on TV 

roughly every 20 seconds for the edification of every child in America. 

No recent event has done more to coarsen public discourse or contribute 

to the inappropriate sexualization of children. 



This is not to ignore Bill Clinton’s own extravagant folly, but it 

wasn’t his idea to turn his intimate sins into a 24/7 TV melodrama. It 

was his political enemies’, all of whom thought humiliating him and 

promoting themselves more important than the public virtue they now so 

piously declaim. 



In connection with a documentary of Joe Conason’s and my book "The 

Hunting of the President," I once asked Falwell, on camera, if the 

biblical commandment against bearing false witness was a lesser sin 

than the other nine. At issue was the televangelist’s promotion of "The 

Clinton Chronicles," a video portraying the president of the United 

States as a cocaine-snorting drug lord and worse. Falwell replied that 

he had no idea if the allegations in the video were true or false, a 

"Clintonian" evasion if ever one was. 



And people call Michael Moore irresponsible! 



Next time you ponder "liberal bias," ask yourself if a left-winger 

connected with a project which intimated that President Bush had his 

political rivals murdered would be a frequent guest on CNN and "Meet 

the Press." But hey, sex sells, as everybody involved in this solemn farce 

understands. It sells beer, it sells whatever products they’re pitching 

on "Desperate Housewives" and it helps sell salvation, too. If not, 

televangelists would rail against something else. Almost as interesting 

as what excites would-be censors is what doesn’t: "The Young and the 

Restless," " The Bold and the Beautiful" and other daytime soaps, whose 

nubile characters devote their entire lives to seduction, betrayal and 

hopping in and out of bed. But Momma don’t like nobody messing with her 

stories, so nobody does. That said, for once Limbaugh’s right: 

Half-naked cheerleaders and beer-ad cuties notwithstanding, a man and 

his kid ought to be able to watch a ball game without both getting 

embarrassed by a hoochie-coochie show. 



• Free-lance columnist Gene Lyons is a Little Rock author and recipient 

of the National Magazine Award.